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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413463">Hungry and Severe</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Red Queen Series - Victoria Aveyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Choking, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, There is actually a plot if you ignore how it feels like someone wrote this in a fever dream, book two: glass sword, dark themes, does this even count as dirty talk?, fem dom, implied dom/sub dynamics, in a world where dreams are the answers to everything, it’s more introspection than anything, mare really just needs a self-help book and therapy, mare tops because I said so, maven is a manipulative bastard but what else is new?, maven's just a masochist, mind games featuring: a really morally gray mare, minor mare/cal, morbid and eerie folk tales, not sure if what mare is going through can be called dissociation officially but..., the identity crisis of glass sword but amped up to 100, things get dark and philosophical</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:14:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I know hunger, its selfish and wolfish way, how it turns you inside and out, how it demands everything and grieves nothing. </p><p>Hunger is the least servile, tameable thing in this world and it makes monsters out of us all. </p><p>The hunger in Maven’s eyes is not the same brand of hunger as mine, but an echo of it. </p><p>—</p><p>Mare Barrow grapples with who she is and what she needs to be for the approaching red dawn.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mare Barrow/Maven Calore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hungry and Severe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I’m going to start off by giving a warning that this thing starts with a third person point of view and then changes to first person. I promise there’s a reason why it was written that way, structurally speaking. The third-person narration is over pretty fast so I hope it isn’t much of a hassle. </p><p>This piece is essentially the brainchild of the identity crisis Mare had in Glass Sword (yes, I actually liked Glass Sword, don’t boo me off from the stage) but a lot more expanded on, with some considerations of her personality taken from King’s Cage. Because of this, there are some quotes taken from the first three books. I don’t emphasize these very small snippets in the text (besides the occasional italicization) to fit them in with the rest of the plot cohesively. </p><p>There are also some (read: dream) reenacting of canon scenes, but I’ve written them with the intent of setting up a narrative and examining Mare’s character in a different light. </p><p>I might have messed up on some of the timeline as I don’t have my physical copy with me, so please let me know if there are any demanding mistakes that catch your attention. </p><p>This isn’t really something you can skim over, as things will be likely missing much-needed context if you do. I highly, highly recommend not checking to see the ending. </p><p>As always, I do hope that you’re not using fanfiction to inform your relationship practices, because nothing in this story should be taken as advice. </p><p>With all those warnings out of the way, I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Songs to listen to while reading: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01T97PuSTQ">Dark Side by Cece And The Dark Hearts</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NNjm_O_gJk">Bitter and Sick by One Two </a></p><p> </p><p>Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.</p><p>  ―   OSCAR WILDE</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>Mare couldn’t recall the last time sleep had sought her out first, no matter how haggard she felt these days, fleeing from city to city in search of others like her. </p><p>Sleep evaded her as a frightened animal did, determined to outrun her every time her head settled on some makeshift pillow. She blamed it on the weeks spent in the comforts of the royal palaces, having grown accustomed to soft and silky fabrics that would swallow her body like some opulent tomb. </p><p>Perhaps her body had forgotten how to rest, always moving now to escape the pursuit of some monster or another. Her world has eclipsed into fight or flight, and some days, adrenaline seemed to be the only thing holding her intact. She felt brittle, on the verge of breaking. So many relied on her, on her name, and yet she felt as if she was the most unreliable thing in the world. </p><p>A piece of machinery stuck in a frenzy, seams waiting to unravel. </p><p>She does not know who she is, even though her face litters every feasible inch of Nortan cities, branding her a murderer, a terrorist, anything but a scared seventeen year old, trying to grapple with the burdening weight of a revolution that is determined to make her the poster child of a conflict she can only begin to fathom. </p><p>Farley speaks of a Command, though they remain a faceless, intangible thing for Mare and the rest. Command hides in the shadows like the rats the Silvers exclaim her kind to be. </p><p>Mare by now knows better than to trust things that roam in shadows. </p><p>She hardly allows any darkness to seep into the meager excuse of a room she is provided in each safe house, electing to bathe herself in the light. The light almost convinces her that she is not tainted with blood and dirt and sweat, that she has found some refuge from the tendril of darkness that has crawled inside of her and claimed home. She doesn't know how many corpses she has left after her wake, how many lives she has ended, how many widows and fatherless children she has made. </p><p>Kilorn watches her these days with accusing eyes, and she can only wonder if when he sees her, he thinks of his own deceased father, obliterated at the mine trenches at Choke, rendered bone and sinew; the little shoebox his remains arrived in, his father’s face and body unrecognizable as his world titled and his mother sobbed.</p><p>Or maybe he sees his mother, unable to care for him, much less herself, how he was left abandoned and orphaned. </p><p>She’s all too unwilling to count. To count war casualties is to cement them in one’s brain, and she can’t allow herself to be pursued by guilt on top of everything else despite the harrowing reminder that she’s only becoming like <em>them.  </em></p><p>
  <em> I’m only doing what I have to do to survive. I’m only doing what I have to do to survive. I’m only doing what I have to do to survive.  </em>
</p><p>It’s become her motto these days. She repeats them before bed like a lullaby, as if it can lull her into some sleep and peace. It doesn’t do much to repel the <em>thing. </em> </p><p>Unlike Maven and the rest of his hunters, this <em>thing </em>pounding inside her possesses patience. It waits for her at her weakest moments, when she is alone and the anger inside of her seems insatiable to announce itself. It seizes her with a vice grip until she cannot think of anything but how she’s been wronged, how she had laid her every hope in <em>his </em>hands, to be exploited and turned against her. She idly wonders what he does now, with the slices and fragments of her she had granted to him with great difficulty. </p><p>Thieves are lone beings by the nature of their work. </p><p>And yet she had been so desperate to attach herself to any semblance of hope. </p><p>Mare can recall his piercing eyes on her, how he had been collecting the sight of her, the sound of her, in the methodical way only a serial hoarder was capable of. She wonders if he rummages through every conversation like they’re pages of an unfinished story book, if he considers every moment of the shared glances, every wry smile aimed at each other. </p><p>Those days, she had thought of them as alone and undisturbed, safe from the gaping jaws of Elara Merandus’ ability.</p><p>She was such a gullible fool, ripe for the taking.</p><p>But she’s not <em>that </em>Mare anymore. She’s something better, something wondrous and somehow, something far worse. </p><p>Sometimes she would try fruitlessly to understand what she had lost, attempting to pierce a coherent understanding of herself together in that clinical way Julian always puzzled over her abilities in his study room. Even Julian, with all his wisdom, had no answers for her.</p><p>She felt as if she could suffocate if she felt like a stranger in her own skin for a moment longer.</p><p>Over the span of mere months, any misdirected, misbegotten faith and belief that had ever existed had thinned into almost nothing at all. Over these weeks, she had transformed into Mareena, the lost Silver lady of a general and her formidable way, the lightning girl and the anomaly of her sheer existence, to the unflinching living banner for the Scarlet Guard. She had wrested herself out of her girlhood and ignorance like death. What was of her before became dead, lumbering weight, only slowing her down. Mare Barrow of the Stilts did not belong in the midst of a brewing war when her fate was meant for the ash-blown trenches a looming conscription promised. But neither did Mareena Titanos belong in grime and dirt, in the company of thieves and criminals and rebels, with hair that greyed, leeched from life. </p><p>Death always took something dear. She could only debate with herself what exactly it stole from her. </p><p>But even in her most hopeful moments, she knew better than to ever imagine she could ever return to who she was before, or to the slow complacency of that life. </p>
<hr/><p>It’s only been a few weeks since the Scarlet Guard and the new recruits settled into the new safe house. </p><p>We’ve taken the habit of calling it the Notch. </p><p>The Notch is situated at the crest of a hill, constantly overtaken by mist. Trees of all kinds dot the winding paths, and lakes gleam with a startling clarity that is found nowhere else. The rolling green mountains serve as somewhat of a picturesque backdrop. </p><p>It’s a foreign place to me, but it serves as a good sanctuary. There are no signs of Silver or Red life nearby, the area seemingly abandoned. Perhaps it was used as a logging village long ago, forgotten in time. Farley tells me that we’re in the Nortan backcountry, north and inland from Harbor Bay. This little nugget of information seemed to be of great interest to Cal, though I’m not sure why. </p><p>The wilderness puts me at unease and comforts me in the same measure.</p><p>I didn’t want to entertain the pretense that I’m safe, even here, but the passing time makes a fool out of that hope. </p><p>I’m desperate to pretend that we can’t be found, not here. </p><p>There’s a clearing that reminds me of the view my father’s house in Stilts offered. I try to feel a pang for it like the others do, though the memories of that house are not as happy as I would like them to be. Maybe it never felt like much of a home for me. Gisa can easily recall the cloths she sewn there, the soft fabrics she worked on for countless hours with keen eyes and nimble hands. She remembers being what was meant to be our salvation. I remember feeling like a specter roaming the streets, always waiting.</p><p>For what, I’m not so sure. </p><p>I don’t think I’ve completely found it yet. </p><p>I do my best to ignore the rumor that I’ve somehow bewitched Cal, which only irks Kilorn when he tries to accuse me of holding his reins, of trying to use him. </p><p>I can only remember the last time I thought I was using princes. </p><p>It didn’t end very well for me. </p><p>I’m not too fond of the forest surrounding us, but Kilorn is overjoyed. He and his new friends, who call themselves Crance and Farrah, often venture out to hunt for the rest of us. There’s not much use for me to complain, though I can’t help but worry for them. </p><p>Who knows what kind of creatures lurk here? </p><p>It’s a silly fear when the threat of humans stumbling on us is more fearsome than some unchecked bear on a rampage. </p><p>Every day, they pack up their hunting rifles, scanning the forest for anything that could nourish us all. Hunting for sport is not a thing Reds do, so we make quick use of every part of the animals. Ada is particularly helpful in how to best prepare what they stumble on and bring back with them.  </p><p>The Notch is becoming quickly overcrowded, though still not as dense as our other safe houses. Children and elderly alike are packed together, trying to find warmth in the heat that Cal has managed to kindle. </p><p>I can’t bring myself to face them, the people depending on me, on my name. Talking with them feels like walking on eggshells, just waiting to be discovered as an imposter. </p><p>If they knew how weak I felt despite my ability, they would abandon this cause. Our collective strength is nothing to boast of and I hardly know what I’m doing these days, feeling untethered to myself. </p><p>Why would they stay?</p><p>Everyone always leaves me. And maybe I can’t find it in myself to blame them. </p><p>I do my best to instruct the others, though I know as much about my abilities as I know of the others. Without Julian to guide me, I only have the small pieces he shared with me. The others must know this too, but they do not comment on it, even when my only snippet of advice is to find control within themselves. </p><p>Control, which I lack myself.</p><p>If they know it, they have enough mercy to not point out my lies. </p><p>The kind of mercy I can’t bring myself to muster for my own sake. </p><p>Maybe I’m undeserving of being gentle to myself, with all the blood in my hands, with all the loss and suffering I’ve caused. </p><p>Lucas protected me, even through torture and worse, though I had stared at him and lied through my teeth. I can recall the gauntness of his face before he died, the sting of the hatred I’ve provoked in him. He told me that I was just like the rest, that I was heartless. </p><p>I’ve led Lucas to his death and these days, I have to remind myself of his existence. That he was not a daydream. </p><p>When I was still betrothed to Maven and swore my allegiance to the Scarlet Guard, I shared no word of warning to that Lerolan lord before the Sun Shooting, even when his children sidled to his side, not even young enough to know what they lost, what I took away from them. </p><p>What would I do if my father was taken from me in such a way? </p><p>I’m too frightened to allow myself to entertain that question, but the answer unfurls through me nonetheless, sure as daylight.</p><p>
  <em> Anything.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Is that how soldiers are not made? Through a blaring need of anger and vengeance?  </em>
</p><p>I’m not in a place to let myself fall into the trap of feeling sorry for those kinds of men. Even when they appeared as docile as a stray cat. They know the way of the world and they are content with it. It suits them to turn a blind eye and keep us under their boots.</p><p>I can only wonder how Maven sleeps at night, how he doesn’t loathe himself on some days so wholly that it makes it difficult to breathe, difficult to be paraded around. </p><p>Perhaps any semblance of humanity escapes him these days. It is easy to not mourn or grieve when you’re a monster. </p><p>Now and always.</p>
<hr/><p>I am reduced to a thing that dreams only of pain and misery. </p><p>I suspect the frustration boiling over having to constantly instruct newbloods who regard me with chill distaste like I am one of <em>them </em>is the thing that induces it ultimately. The children oddly take a liking to Cal, let him entertain them with stories of glory while he lets a flame stir in one hand, providing enough proof for them that he is who he claims to be. </p><p>That he is one of the last Calores.</p><p>He might just be the last if I make it out of this alive. </p><p>It’s only natural that one matter of frustration twines with the other in my mind, I tell myself. </p><p>My dreams are at first deceiving, inconcrete things. They ebb at the edge of my unconscious, almost welcoming compared to the nightmares that follow. </p><p>And then they begin to take shape and forms. </p><p>I first dream of the ash-blown trenches of Choke, the air so thick and hazardous that I almost choke. I’ve heard of it too many times not to imagine what it looks like, how shadows drift over the land of the dead, how the soil would feed on the corpses, a carrion like a crow with an insatiable belly. </p><p>Slaughter awaited me in that land of the dead. </p><p>War, after all, is a factory only capable of churning out corpses. </p><p>And only in death are people like me ever free. </p><p>It’s not the kind of freedom that I yearn for. Not the one the Scarlet Guard promises. </p><p>I dream of a life thwarted by a twist of fate, children with Kilorn’s green eyes, and his awkward gait. Worrying over the contents of a stew like my mother rather than all the oncoming battles we have yet to fight. Shade dead, a ghost that haunts me continually. Of the quiet dissatisfaction of that life, my hair being leeched of all color, any hope dissipating into nothing but light air. My back bowing over insurmountable odds, unable to do anything. </p><p>Sometimes, I dream of the crackle of electricity that greeted me at Queenstrial, the hum surrounding me an eulogy. The purple-white electricity sparks to life, a crystallized form of pure energy separated into veins, like poetry in motion. </p><p>The shuddering groans of the metal pipes of the box at Spiral Garden only belong to Evangeline. </p><p>It is my reckoning. </p><p>I lurch and tumble in that dream always, try to catch my balance to no avail as the surface beneath me vibrates. I drop with the silverware, but the lightning does not rise to meet me. My flesh sings as I’m cooked alive by bolts of electricity that do not heed my command, that are not of my doing and do not answer to me. </p><p>The pure electricity hisses against my flesh, licks down and up on my arms and pulverizes me to mere powder in the span of a few seconds.</p><p>
  <em> I don’t even get the satisfaction of a scream.  </em>
</p><p>They scrape away my remains a few hours after, my skin charred black by heat.</p><p>
  <em> They can’t have the Spiral Garden be tarnished by the remains of vermin, after all, can they? </em>
</p><p>I can even sense the smell. Can sense it filling up my nostrils, even though it is a mere dream. </p><p>
  <em> An electrocuted pile of remains never smells nice.  </em>
</p><p>The thought of not having this ability makes me bitter, hollows me out. Having a taste of this power and going back seems impossible now. </p><p>Maybe that makes me covetous, makes me ravenous. But it is the unconsoling truth. </p><p>I dream of the moments before and after Tiberias’ head was severed. When the lie unraveled itself in front of me, like in the tragedy plays that I recall <em>him </em>being so fond of.</p><p>
  <em> “Maven, help me up.” </em>
</p><p>My voice sounds so childish to my ears, and the shame permeates through even my dreams. </p><p>I remember the sluggish movements, how his chains disintegrated into nothing. I had unshackled and set something loose that I can’t begin to fathom. </p><p>Maven doesn’t stare at me, not really. </p><p>I lost him long ago, weeks before this. </p><p>His eyes settle on the accursed crown on his father’s head, the wreaths of black flames that wink with a monstrosity of gems. It is the subject of his dear adoration.</p><p>The answer is always the same, the same curt, scathing reply that he uttered to me then. </p><p>I can remember the wicked gleam of the sword, the hilt that wept iron tears by the force of Cal’s sorrow. I pleaded until I felt hoarse, but that only fed Elara’s rage. Begging was futile when it came to her sadistic nature, but Maven’s eyes lingered fixedly, stubbornly on the sword. He never condescends to look at me or his betrayed blood. I see him flinch, a fleeting movement that undermines the cool indifference of him a minute ago. </p><p><em> Coward. Coward. Coward</em>. </p><p>In that suspended moment, I am powerless. A speck of nothing in the path of murderers. A stupid, naive girl who had placed her trust in the worst kinds of monsters possible. </p><p>
  <em> Stupid girl. Foolish girl. Look what your hope has done.  </em>
</p><p>Cal tries to resist for all he is worth but he is no match for Elara’s mental hold. </p><p>This is a battle he cannot fight. </p><p>A battle he has no hopes of winning. </p><p>The sword arcs through the air with a swift force, a violent slash. </p><p>I dream of the ceremonious blade that cleaved between Tiberias’ head and shoulders, the unblinking dead eyes that greeted us all. His pool of blood had not even fully settled on the floor before Maven had retrieved his father’s crown for the taking. I remember how useless my limbs felt, the numbness that took control over me as I watched, a mere spectator to the threads of a plan long arranged before me. </p><p>That little scene always plays the same, shrouded in mist and fog, tainted with the memory of a ghost. </p><p>I don’t know why I bother always glancing at him from my peripheral vision, expecting to see an inkling of remorse or regret. The Maven of my dreams is hollow, a statue gilded from steel, his brother a puppet of their making. </p><p>Ghosts don’t feel pity. Even I know that. </p><p>Then there is the arena, the watchful eye of the cameras broadcasting every second, electricity roaring beneath my skin, the bloodbath that always beckons. </p><p>White sand, steel, and stonework. The hate of hundreds, thousands brims within me. The video screens reflect my face. Or what looks <em>like </em>my face. </p><p>My face looks whetted, too...<em> hungry. </em> My teeth are too sharp, my eyes bloodshot with red. As if I’ve been starved for decades, haggard and harsh. The howls and jeers demanding blood do not reach my ears. I can feel the drum of war echoing in my mind, wild and unforgiving.</p><p>My hand twitches at my side, wanting to be set loose. </p><p>
  <em> If they want entertainment, I will give it to them. </em>
</p><p>It’s odd that I don’t feel strange in this skin, that it accommodates me so well. </p><p>Our executioners are not wolves like they were then. </p><p><em> This </em>Mare thinks that they pose no threat to her, that they are unmenacing as a child. </p><p>They seem small in comparison, as if I can somehow dwarf them in size. </p><p>Instead of being stalked like prey, I’m prowling, on the hunt. </p><p><em> Come on</em>, I think. <em> Just try.  </em></p><p>Unlike Cal, I’m not restrained by sand or water. </p><p>There is no silver ability that counteracts mine, and <em>he </em>must know. </p><p>I mourn for my ability all the more. </p><p>When my fingers find Stralian Haven’s eyes this time, I gouge at them with an animal glee as he cries out in pain with mirrored tears, stumbling with a wild, primal desperation. He’s as good as blind when I wrestle him down with the hard line of my shoulder, colliding with his body. I clamp hard on his neck with those sharp teeth. My face smarts and stings and bleeds as his hands make grabs, but I don’t let up for a moment, digging my elbow at his ribs. He can’t hold firm for much longer surely. </p><p>My feet pounds against his torso with the succession of my rapid kicks. I’m faster than him, but the realization dawns on him too late. </p><p>He lands to the bottom of the sand like a dumb rock, his blood painting a trail. </p><p>I let Rhambos corner me, think me as a trapped rat unable to scurry, all the while as instructor Arven derides me, repeating those words he drilled into my head days ago in training with a sneer. </p><p>I play my part well, feign defeat, let it show in my features. </p><p>If I’m to be a liar, a fraud, I might as well save my skin. </p><p>A well-timed drop in the sand and the spear meant for me hurtles at Arven, blending easily with the rest of the shrapnel and metal that the Samos siblings are tossing around. Instructor Arven collapses, the spear splitting him in two. </p><p>My chance. </p><p>
  <em> Finally.  </em>
</p><p>I don’t look back, too concentrated on drawing out the lashes of electricity from the dome shield.</p><p><em> Mine. Mine. Mine. </em> </p><p>They cannot take my lightning away from me. It will always be undeniably mine. </p><p>I call it to me, almost greedy for the taste of it now. </p><p>
  <em> I’ve always had the advantage.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Silver and Red, and stronger than both. </em>
</p><p>I don’t pay mind to the startled gasps and shrieks that rattle through the arena, the whispers that amplify in volume.</p><p>When my lightning is set free and explodes to life, it blazes through the heels of Rhambos. It strikes against his sickening war armor, producing fissures that break it down to ashes, crumbling away to nothing, carried by a slight breeze. </p><p>One of Evangeline’s prized metal stars sails past my cheek before she’s incapacitated by Cal. Red blood drips from the wound, bleeding freely into the sand. A statement, a declaration. </p><p>The video screens go dark overhead, but they saw me as I am nonetheless. </p><p>I only feel saddened that the rest can’t watch. If they could, they would know that even with all their violent ways, Silvers are more than capable of being frightened. </p><p>The blood on my mouth is sharp and metallic, red, but all the more wonderful. </p><p>The sky darkens, the clouds gathering, waiting for my command. </p><p>I unleash it on Rhambos and his spear. </p><p>Lightning surges like a light rod through Rhambos’ spear, eating through the metal and the flesh of his hand. I find myself delighting on his screams that start to resemble a tea kettle, the charge advancing higher and higher until he’s a twitching, quivering pile of dead meat put on display. </p><p>Water laps at my feet in waves and envelops me, hissing and spitting, courtesy of Lord Osanos. </p><p>It’s only a hindrance. He won’t escape my wrath. </p><p>I cook Osanos alive in his polished chrome of armor, the noise of him boiling alive drowning out the Samos siblings dueling against Cal. He sounds like a flopping fish in his last moments. </p><p>He doesn’t deserve any dignity and I don’t allow him any. </p><p>I shake with strength and adrenaline, my hands clenched at my sides. </p><p>I spot Cal grimacing.</p><p>A burner feeling sorry for a nymph. What a sight. </p><p>Through it all, the sight of Maven blurs through the crowds above me, and I can only glean the slight curl of his mouth against his teeth, as if he’s pleased to see me murder his kind. </p><p>He’s riveted, brows furrowed, unable to tear his eyes away from the wreckage I make of the arena. </p><p>Destruction is a thing he and I understand only too well.</p><p>
  <em> Take notes, though it will do you no good when I come for you, Maven.  </em>
</p><p>The veined dome shield is the only thing separating him and me. </p><p>
  <em> And it will only hold for so much longer.  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>I quickly learn not to place my faith and trust in the black void of sleep. </p><p>My dreams twist and turn darker with each day, unmerciful in the way they force me to relive things that are better kept buried. </p><p>The wind howls outside as barren twigs scrape against the walls, making my belongings shift. It’s a noise that gives away to all sorts of dark imaginings, helped by the paranoia of the nightmare that awakened me. Deep shadows and swathes of darkness cast over the almost bare furnishings of my room, in wispy ribbons that remind me of a monster extending its limbs across the breadth of the room. </p><p>
  <em> If it’s a monster, it’s a rather tall one.  </em>
</p><p>The echoes of the nightmare rattle through my mind. </p><p>Ringing gunshots, wailing, and the false screams of Maven and his mother combined.</p><p>
  <em> Like the others, you were doomed to fail.  </em>
</p><p>It is Elara’s voice, a cadence of sounds that stir deep unease within me, reminding me of how much I have to lose if I stumble, if I commit one grave mistake. </p><p>It’s a recurring one, but it doesn’t lessen the fear it invokes me. </p><p>I tell myself stories to chip away the fear and the cold, burying myself into the depths of the bed I’m allowed. It’s better than what most are given, which consists of a hard cot or an issued blanket. </p><p>When I was very young, I had an interest in the slightly morbid and gory tales, those eerie and strange folklore stories. </p><p>Gisa used to hate me for it, leaving the confines of our shared room whenever I asked for them. </p><p>The plot was usually much of the same, meant to fabricate some level of suspense. They’re intended to draw out the chills of horror with bread crumbs of small details contained like puzzle pieces. They are the kind of stories that are spread out in every city, sometimes even regardless of the color of our blood. In particular, I liked the ones with the imminent monster. The ones that were strong and relative, the ones that hooked to my soul and made my flesh tingle and prickle in fear: the child-catchers, the cruel step-mothers and aunts, the strange men with riddles</p><p>They were strangely exciting, the ones with knives and ropes and mistakes that got the poor child caught and taken away by something that would hold them down, cut them up, peel off their skin and devour them. </p><p>Some monsters had teeth and claws and used them to drag the child back to their evil lair. Some had fists and chains and lackeys. Some disguised themselves as poor, lone souls and wove a tale of need. </p><p>Some would say it was the frightful thrill at the prospect of being a monster’s meat that caught my attention.</p><p>For me, it was the chase. </p><p>It was an often overlooked element, no matter by what you called it: the journey, the mistake, the transgression. </p><p>For many, it was inconsequential. </p><p>For me, it was the beating heart of the story, the pivot, no matter the variation. </p><p>The structure of these stories often left things open-ended for the audience to decide and I liked my stories that way.</p><p>I enjoyed reimagining how things would have gone if the child was not so gullible, how they could have not strayed too far from their path and meandered uselessly, how they could have not led the monster into their home to be fed to them. </p><p>If I felt in the mood, I would recount it to myself in a way that the child knew what the monster had planned for them all along, letting themselves be lured by silly flowers only to turn back on the monster and best it at its own game. </p><p>Instead of the child being devoured and leaving behind a scrap of clothes, it becomes the story of the great monster’s demise.</p><p>There is this one tale that my mother only told me once when I couldn’t fall asleep during the coldness of the winter, my face red and shivering as she cradled me in her arms. Weakness had bled into me and I was surely coming down with a cold unlike any other I’ve known in my life. Our ‘lec rations had run out and we would not be getting any new ones soon because of Bree. Bree’s infraction being his failure to follow curfew because he wanted so badly to meet up with one of his endless <em>friends</em>. </p><p>My mother was strict and angry with him for more than what must have been a month as Bree, the hulking bear, avoided our eyes, guilt-ridden. </p><p>Even though she shared that sorry tale with me only once, it is practically ingrained in my mind.</p>
<hr/><p>Once upon a time, there was a girl with blood that ran as smooth and clean as the rivers that surround the Stilts. </p><p>Her mother and father made a living off those rivers, knowing when and how to navigate it the best. </p><p>They lived in a little dwelling, but still, it was a home and much beloved to the man and wife that lived there. The man and the wife never had a second to spare for the girl, and if they did, they only found themselves disappointed in her and lectured her constantly. It was a tiring kind of life for all those involved, especially when the girl apprenticed in her father’s store, skinning away fins and tessellations with clumsy hands. </p><p>(The content of the girl’s blood changes depending on the region the tale is told. In some variations, the girl’s blood is of honey and dew. I think it’s meant to reflect the natural bounty of the region. I only had a taste of honey once, in Summerton. Though I’m certain that the governor’s children in the Stilts surely know more than enough what honey tastes like. I’ve only had a glimpse of them a few times, hiding behind their mother’s skirts). </p><p>Her days spent in the shop had come to an abrupt end when the rivers and lakes froze in the middle of the summer. Her father and her mother became cruel and impatient with her, or at least, treated her with more than their usual kind of soft cruelty and impatience. They fell in hard times and frequently admonished her for little accidents, getting angry over the smallest things. </p><p>The girl devised a plan to escape the weak clutches of her father and mother and only to come back when she knew she earned their approval, tired of being constricted and hated at every turn. </p><p>She had heard pieces and snippets of gossip that the lakes and rivers froze because the powerful neighboring water nation to them bore a grudge against their king, who was quickly losing support amongst the neighboring kingdoms. He was a weak thing, bending to the whims of his lords and the wishes of his council that wished to wage war, not heeding the wise wisdom of his advisors that urged him to listen to his supposed allies.  </p><p>But the king’s younger brother, the prince, did not agree with the way that the kingdom was governed. The prince had failed at a coup only a few years ago, and it was rumored that he was in hiding from the king’s grasp. If the girl could deliver the prince to the favored princes and princesses of the water kingdom in a nice little parcel at their doorstep, surely he would be made king and the lakes and rivers would rush to life back again in return. </p><p>She would have to find the prince first, though she didn’t need to think of it much, having been told by wisemen that he was likely hiding out in the woods or the mountains, someplace where an entitled prince would never be found. </p><p>So she journeyed out to the wild woods, with nothing but her old things, which wore her down tired. Exhausted and weary, she searched out the woods for anyone who could come to her aid, someone who could even tell her that they sighted the prince. But there was nothing but a decrepit, forlorn cottage that was rickety at the steps that she found herself circling back and forth. </p><p>When she ventured inside the cottage at last, her senses were overwhelmed at how tidy and clean everything was. The dilapidated cottage was only a disguise then, and surely the owner would take mercy on a poor girl like her. A fireplace burned in the middle of the room, flames dancing against the cold of the world outside. </p><p>The girl settled down with the intent to sleep there for the night but found herself sick and feverish the next day. </p><p>She took it upon herself to rest for a few days. </p><p>Soon, she gave up and made a home in that cottage, having not sighted anyone that could claim to be its owner. </p><p>Every day, when she woke up, food was set out for her and warm water, which she could wash with. </p><p>And soon, she forgot her mission and her old life and let herself adjust to this kind of comfortable stability. </p><p>On the third week of her stay, a voice she couldn’t place told her that it was the owner and that she was welcomed to stay as long as she didn’t take a glimpse of their face or ask too many questions. </p><p>The girl was quickly descending into curiosity, wishing to at least take a glance at the gracious owner who let her in. </p><p>When the owner sparsely talked, their voice was that of a man’s. </p><p>She was not allowed in certain rooms, nor could she ever touch certain trinkets, which might have been his own. </p><p>He was an oddity she couldn’t understand.</p><p>He had set a strict curfew for her, forbidding her to be awake at a certain time, and she was always meant to be bundled inside when the clocks struck that very minute. She suspected it was at that time that he would be easy to sight. Perhaps he settled on his own feather bed or stayed late to read, accompanied by the small light of a lone candle. </p><p>So one day, the girl feigned to be asleep at the usual time, waiting as the hours ticked by until she heard a noise. </p><p>She waited some more until she heard the telltale sounds one makes in a deep sleep. </p><p>The carpet dug at her heels as she roamed like a specter, her dress brushing the wood beneath her feet. </p><p>With her, she carried a candle that she lit with the coals of the fire that she collected from the fireplace. </p><p>She was soaked in the juices of a ripe pomegranate she found deep at the heart of the woods before she stumbled on the cottage, covered red with it. </p><p>It was a safeguard against all kinds of dangers and evils in her village, and she felt safe covered head to toe with it. </p><p>The girl hesitated as she stood in front of a door she was never allowed to open, took a breath that felt like gravel to her mouth, and then pushed the door open with shaking hands. </p><p>Nothing amiss, no factory operated by magic that chopped children and packaged them in neat packs for witches. </p><p>She pushed herself forward, with a curiosity that knew no bounds. </p><p>There was a lone bed and someone was sleeping in it. </p><p>An intruder? </p><p>No. No one visited these cold woods. </p><p>Slowly, she crept until her hands settled on a blanket that concealed the sight of <em>his </em>face and body, waiting to be found.</p><p>She shoved the blanket away with as small force as possible and gasped at the sight that greeted her in response. </p><p>He looked the same as he did in his royal portraits. </p><p>The lost prince lay in the bed, his features fluid and undisturbed in his sleep, though his brows were furrowed as if he was puzzling over some riddle he could not solve.</p><p>The girl leaned down for a better look. Her hair was long enough to suffocate a man, and it brushed against his shoulders then. </p><p>It must have been what woke him up, for he released a panicked scream at the sight of her, pushing her away. During the mad rush and commotion, the wax of her candle dripped on his comely face, ran hot down the graceful and magnificent lines of his nose and mouth until he bled and cried.</p><p>The prince thrashed like an animal in pain, betrayed by her prying hands, and screamed foul things at himself for trusting her, for thinking of her as his savior. He screamed and screamed until his voice was hoarse. </p><p>The sight of his scarred, unrecognizable face despaired him more than anything as he threw himself against the fireplace and seized the candle from the girl’s hand. </p><p>He set fire to that worn cottage, letting fire lick at everything in sight. </p><p>For what kingdom will throne a would-be king with a face like ash? </p><p>How will anyone recognize him as the same prince who dared to go against the king? </p><p>The kingdom will never be his now. </p><p>He would rather have death. </p><p>Fire eats away the rest of his flesh, and his screams ring through the woods, and the creatures lurking in that dark, terrible wood scream with him, as if weeping for his loss.</p><p>The carcass of the prince merges with a beloved bracelet of his until his bones are encased in the same silver. The fire is still present in his bloodstream, in his veins. </p><p>When the first Calore of many finds the prince’s remains as a young boy and lays him to eternal rest, the gods bless him with the phantom fire coursing through the prince’s bones, as long as he wears a bracelet crafted with the same metal material of the prince’s corpse. </p><p>And the girl, sly and unscrupulous, had fled from the scene of the crime, having watched from afar as the cottage burned away into nothing. </p><p>If she was ever favored by the supposed gods of the old world, she had lost their favor then. </p><p>She survives, but she is not spared from their wrath. </p><p>For all her failed machinations and her lost hope, the long slumbering gods curse her blood and her line all the same. </p><p>Patches of her skin burn lurid red. </p><p>The red of the pomegranate seeds taint her treacherous blood forever.</p><p>She is a god’s cursed, and so are the rest of her miserable kind. </p>
<hr/><p>The tale undoubtedly originates from the Silvers. </p><p>That much I can tell. </p><p>For one, the girl in the story is always described as plumb and never malnourished when the way of her family is threatened, as if food can be produced from nothing but air.  </p><p>
  <em>Silvers don’t know what it’s like to starve. </em>
</p><p>Somehow, she is always ungrateful, even though a Red like that in the Stilts would be good as dead. </p><p>She is made out to be a foolish girl who is too selfish to pause and think or consider anyone else besides her own damned curiosity and need. </p><p>The prince is said to be the victim, even though his only motivation for his supposed graciousness is his want for a crown and a throne. </p><p>Why else would he feed and clothe a girl he barely knows?</p><p>When the hope of kingship leaves him, he hardly has a care for the girl, intending to burn the both of them in that old cottage. </p><p>Only her supposed selfishness and hubris saves her. </p><p>
  <em>Even though that describes them well enough, doesn’t it? Only concerned with their own affairs and ungracious for all the luxuries they have, always seeking more and more. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Till there is nothing left for us. </em>
</p><p>Her transgression, so to speak, is her decision to defy the prince’s requests, to take a glimpse of the prince’s face. </p><p>For thinking she was even worthy to stare at the supposedly divine planes of his face, of the face of the first Silver. </p><p>
  <em>Because she is so ignorant and so wholly Red. </em>
</p><p>It’s meant to assure the Silvers of their power, to scare us, to cow us into submission. </p><p>To shame us for thinking we could be their equals and sames. </p><p>A warning, a promise, the first death of any hope. </p><p>Even from a young age, you learn that your blood is a curse, that you are meant for nothing but the graves. </p><p>In my reimaginings, sometimes the girl treks her way into the mountains and sleeps alongside beasts, wears the pelts of she-wolves as a coat to ward off the frigid air and uses their incisors as necklace beads, or dangles their canines in a long thread in her ear like earrings. </p><p>She learns to nourish herself with a diet of seeds and leaves and nothing but the cold, clean air. </p><p>But most of all, she learns to bide her time until the king decides one fateful day to hunt in the jagged mountains for sport.</p><p>He is too paranoid to trust others so he comes by himself, thinking himself alone. </p><p>The girl sends him flying to his sudden death, a misdirection here and there, and his death marks a new beginning. </p><p>She is hailed as a hero and the king only becomes a story told in hushed tones over a fire to children. </p><p>In my favorite reimagining, the girl knows she has found the prince. </p><p>She is a trickster by nature, and her curiosity is not a fault but a thing that serves her. </p><p>She learns how to entertain the prince, how to lull him into a false sense of security. </p><p>He thinks nothing of it when she claims a need to see her family again, not even noticing her thieving hands and his stolen bracelet. </p><p>She leads the king to the cottage by herself, the prince’s bracelet her only proof, assuring the king in the meanwhile as she smiles razor-sharp at her reflection cast in the embers and cinders of the dying fire. </p><p>She burns both of them alive in that long forgotten cottage, escaping on bare feet and half stumbling on bramble, watching smoke pour into the sky. </p><p>The animals howl along in this one too, but in glee and joy. </p><p>The fire will raze the forest down and let it grow again. </p><p>Better, fuller, greener. </p><p>As it always was meant to be. </p><p>In this one, the girl is a martyr, aware of the price she is paying. </p><p>With her blood, with her fate, with her future. </p><p>The pomegranate seeds that she paints herself with is not a mark of shame in this reimagining. </p><p>They declare her as a king’s executioner and a prince’s downfall. </p><p>She is an equalizer, a monster’s demise. </p><p>
  <em>There is no need for kings or princes when your blood is a weapon in itself. </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>It starts, as all of the worst things do, in the midst of the night. </p><p>I dream of Maven and of Maven only now, and even the stories and the most elaborate tales cannot ward him away. </p><p>He torments me in my days and tires me at night until I feel the threat of my resolve wavering, bit by bit. </p><p>I see him in the fringes of my life, here and there when I’m meant to wish him dead. </p><p>Some unbidden part of me is poring over the loss of him, and I feel it consume me, the way a merchant obsesses over his records, over any loss of his precious gold. </p><p>His absence leaves a blank and flat surface in my life. </p><p>I’m only glad that there are no Whispers around me to know what I dream of. </p><p>It’s my best kept secret, alongside the box of supplies in the corner of the room, where I keep trinkets hidden. </p><p>His letters are crumpled at the bottom, but I strangely find myself unable to part with them.</p><p>They all bear the same ending, his words wielded like knives.</p><p>
  <em>Until we meet again. </em>
</p><p>I feel as if the ink could strangle me. </p><p>I don’t dare mention them to his brother, who has taken the habit of sleeping alongside me in my bed. </p><p>We don’t have time for distractions, and there’s hardly much to take out of the experience when Cal has his own nightmares to deal with. </p><p>He doesn’t ask, doesn’t prod at me like everyone else for the most part, and I leave him and his own nightmares alone. </p><p>I don’t want Cal’s pity, much less when it concerns Maven. </p><p>I’ve had enough of pity and accusations for a lifetime.</p>
<hr/><p>This November is cold, made all the worse by the forest surrounding the Notch. Even the smuggled shipment of clothes from Farley’s criminal contacts can do so much when the cold seeps itself into my bones. </p><p>Somehow, I feel more isolated and ostracized than ever, when Cal’s the one meant to be exiled between the both of us. </p><p>I’ve developed the habit of returning to Maven’s letters whenever I feel frustrated at myself for my failures and all the close calls. </p><p>It’s a better punishment for whenever I falter than anything the Colonel could have concocted. </p><p>The pain daggers through me, sharp and sure as my eyes skim through his penmanship, muttering every word to myself quietly. </p><p>There’s no hint of where he’s headed next, nothing but hatred for his brother and his strange, inexplicable melancholy for me. </p><p>The mysterious Command Farley speaks of likely knows more than me where he’s heading next, which lord or lady he will coerce or terrorize to his side, what kind of audience he will entertain for his next speech. </p><p>I crumble the useless thing in my hand, gnash my teeth so hard that I taste blood at the back of my tongue. </p><p>I can envision him and his face if I close my eyes, having been forced to instruct Nanny in the idiosyncrasies of Maven Calore before we’re headed to Corros, into what might be our imminent death. </p><p>I only have incomplete pieces of him, but it is surely more credible and extensive than what the officers know of him in Corros. </p><p>I watched raptly as Nanny’s kind features bled into his sharp lines as she morphed, unable to look away at the true smile that plastered on his face. </p><p>There was a twinge of something that stirred in me then at the sight of his soft smile. </p><p>That kind of smile should not belong to someone like him. </p><p>It took everything in me not to punch Nanny in the jaw. </p>
<hr/><p>I sink down into my bed almost immediately, letting it drown my body in a cocoon of cotton. </p><p>Corros will be either the death of me and my hope of any freedom or my trump card during all of this mess. </p><p>I intend it to be my trump card, though I can hardly predict what tomorrow will bring. </p><p>In either outcome, I will need plenty of rest. </p><p>Cal’s nowhere to be seen, likely still regaling tales from the front to the children. He’s as frightened as the rest of us, though he hides it well behind years of training. </p><p>Farley’s just excited to do something daring, and I can’t blame her for it entirely. The thrill of a battle is something else, even when it threatens to consume you. </p><p>I shift against the bed, trying to achieve some semblance of comfort while not reopening any old wounds. </p><p>There are no Silver healers here after all. </p><p>Disturbingly soon enough, black spots dot my vision, threatening to spread for what might be the first time in months. </p><p>I let myself succumb to the beguiling, siren call of sleep. </p>
<hr/><p>I’m panting heavily against the headboard of my bed when I awake, trying to recall the last, terrifying seconds of my nightmare. </p><p>I wildly look around, half-expecting to see something intruding on me. </p><p>To both my relief and irritation, I am utterly alone. </p><p>Whatever my nightmare was, it makes sweat break out against my temple with each heaving breath that rattles through my chest. </p><p>Cal’s still not here, though I can sense that it’s now completely dark. </p><p>For a moment, I try to convince myself out of what I’m about to do, though I’m never good at winning these internal debates. </p><p><em>It’s better to do it when Cal isn’t here</em>, I justify to myself. </p><p>With a resigned sigh, I head for the box of supplies, to the crumbled letters that seem to call for me, even now. </p><p>I blindly reach for a random one, not bothering to sift through them all. </p><p>It doesn’t matter which one I pick, Maven always knows how to make me bleed the best. </p><p>When I settle down unceremoniously on the edge of the hard sheet of my bed, I become all too aware of a pair of eyes piercing through me, trained on my head. </p><p>
  <em>I’m being watched. </em>
</p><p>The letter drops from my hand.</p><p>I twist my neck towards the eyes, about to tell Kilorn or Cal off for playing games with me, only to be greeted by the sight of Maven Calore himself, sprawled on my bed. </p><p>“Up for some late-night reading? Didn’t think you had it in you, Mare.” </p><p>My instincts scream at me to run. </p><p>But I know he’s something I have to face.</p><p>The first thing I register is that he doesn’t sound like the warped caricature of his voice I conjure while reading his vile notes at night alone. </p><p>Maven looks like a figure drawn from black and white chalk, birthed in shadows, his hair resembling tendrils of darkness. The night accentuates the shadows under his eyes while the moon illuminates the lines of his face. </p><p>Dark and light. Light and dark.</p><p>Chiaroscuro in living motion.</p><p>He’s not wearing his usual military uniform lined with unearned metals that he dons at almost every broadcast, nor that idiotic bloodred cape. </p><p>The silk black set* he’s wearing is meant for sleeping, smooth as oil and pure as night. </p><p>I’m sure if I touched the material, it would flow through my hands like water. </p><p>“You-”</p><p>The sight of his feline smile is what irks me the most, I think, before I lung for him without any deliberation on my part. </p><p>I seize him sharply, bunching up the collar of the silk shirt as his back collides with the wood frame of my bed. </p><p>For a small moment I could treasure forever, pain blooms across the features of his face. </p><p>He doesn’t flinch now, though, having the gall to still smile at me. </p><p>It should unsettle me, how much I want to hear him scream.</p><p>
  <em>It doesn’t.  </em>
</p><p>I reach with greedy hands, wanting to snuff out his life, right here and now. </p><p>His head slams against the framing again. This time, it produces a sickening sound. His shoulder contorts with the force of the movement, face pressed against the wood. </p><p>A slip of his skin is exposed as he swivels his neck before my hand strikes against his cheek, not giving him time to collect himself back together. </p><p>The blow resounds against the silence of my room. </p><p><em>It’s not enough</em>, I think, dimly. </p><p>
  <em>Never enough. </em>
</p><p>For his part, he doesn’t cry out, still supporting that vexing smile that burns at the edges of my vision.</p><p>His breathing is ragged, and somehow, he still musters the energy to smile at me and play the nonchalance act. His chest falls up and down as he gathers his bearings, though his composure has thinned somewhat. </p><p>“Didn’t want a playmate? My bad.” </p><p>He’s not the vision of my nightmares. He looks just <em>like </em>the untainted memories of that unassuming boy. The boy I would confide in. </p><p>The boy who understood me at my worst, my cruelest, the boy who didn’t ask me how I was so easily led into sacrificing those targets off the board when he paid me a visit that night, right after I danced in his brother’s arms. </p><p>He told me that night that he wished they wouldn’t paint me up silver every day, brushed his hands against my cheek and felt my blood pound. </p><p>“What game do you think we’re playing, Maven?!” I snarl at him. </p><p>His eyes meet mine, and he’s just close enough that I can spot the silver flecks of them. </p><p>The same silver flecks that gazed back at me on the boat. He kissed me on that day, held on to me desperately. Convinced me I was what he wanted and not his father’s crown. </p><p>
  <em>He doesn’t like to lose and neither do I. </em>
</p><p>I can only think of the Haven lord of my nightmares, how I gouged his eyes out from the eye sockets. </p><p>“Not chess, if we are being honest with your talents,” he murmurs, sarcasm evident in his tone. </p><p>I glare up at him with venom and vitriol, despising his height over me. </p><p>At least he doesn’t tower over me like his brother.</p><p>He clicks his tongue at my sour expression. </p><p>“No, I’m referring to how you keep running away with your band of revolutionaries from what you know is inevitable.”</p><p>The words leaving his mouth feel like a perversion, as if he’s possessed by some being walking in his skin. </p><p>A parasite. </p><p>I want to claw the monster out of him and I want to claw at the monster that he is. </p><p>I don’t know which one I desire more. </p><p>My brows raise in question, my mouth a firm, unmoving line. His time is ticking and he knows I’m far more impatient and vengeful than his brother. </p><p>“You’re going to lose. You’re better off accepting my proposition, submitting yourself and the rest to the mercy of the-”</p><p>I laugh at his face resolutely, wanting to make his blood sing with electricity and heat.</p><p>“I would rather die.” </p><p>This time, it is his hands that seize at me in a blind grab, forcing me to stare up at him with a desperation I can’t source. </p><p>“You <em>will </em>die. This time you will not be granted an arena. Your death will not be televised, and your excuse of a revolution will end with you. You will die alone and scared and your family will never hear from you again. Is that what you really want?” </p><p>Words tumble out of his mouth like threads. </p><p>A pause, then somewhat softer. </p><p>“Submit to me and I’ll stop killing them.”</p><p>It’s a sharp hiss against my ear. </p><p>My nostrils flare as I free myself from his vice grip, my teeth grinding so hard that he must have heard it. </p><p>“I will not go back. Nothing will make me go back to you.”</p><p>The corner of his mouth twitches as his fists clench against his sides. The following words are quiet but sturdy. </p><p>“Not even for them? Your family, your friends?” </p><p>I shake my head, and for a moment, my stare on him wavers. </p><p>Shame fills my senses. </p><p>It is not an easy thing to admit to myself, let alone him. </p><p>His mouth curls into a pointed, mocking smile. </p><p>“So our little lightning girl is not the hero who she claims to be. Maybe I can even make you admit that you are as awful as I am.”</p><p>I scoff at him, though it even sounds fake and feigned to my own ears, his words reminiscent of the self-condemnations my mind forces me to live through every night. </p><p>“Come on, I’m wounded that you think of me as so naive. You were practically egging Cal to kill Ptolemus in the arena. You knew that they were close friends since childhood, practically brothers in arms, but you couldn’t care less how much it would hurt him. I saw the disappointment in your face when the rage in him faded. You wanted to spill Ptolemus’ blood. You wanted to kill both of Samos siblings. And you would have given them no mercy.”</p><p>I shake my head rapidly, feeling ice spread throughout my body with each word. </p><p>Maven’s heat is the only thing keeping me warm. </p><p>The stupid violet slip of my nightdress is threadbare and useless against the cold. </p><p>“No? You don’t think I can tell when you’re lying, Mare?” </p><p>“You would know about lying and falsehood, you fucking bastard-”</p><p>He doesn’t seem fazed at my bout of profanity, chuckling at me, amused. </p><p>He continues on, undeterred by my slew of insults. </p><p>“But still, you’re better than my brother. You will never be like Cal, no matter how much you try. He’s an idealist, spoonfed on lies of the state. But you? You come to somewhat enjoy killing and letting yourself loose. It’s not an issue of honor or duty with you.”</p><p>I scowl at him, tightening my jaw. </p><p>“You’d just be about willing to do anything to win. And you’d be capable of it too.”</p><p>
  <em>No. No. No.</em>
</p><p>I force myself to calm, to not let anything show. He can't possibly know that these are the very same accusations that haunt me at night.</p><p>“Denial will only suit you for so long. But lying comes easy to you, doesn’t it? It’s what we’re both good at.”</p><p>“You don’t know a <em>thing </em> about me-” I almost feel like shrieking at him now. </p><p>“Of course I do. My mother tells me more than enough about you and how you think.” </p><p>“What I <em> used </em>to think,” I correct him, though I feel like I gained no ground.</p><p>There is a strange mirth in his eyes before something dawns on him. He hums, drawing out the moment like he’s still mulling over me. </p><p>As if he hasn’t gone over what he wanted to say to me a thousand times before, rehearsing for just this moment. </p><p><em>He’s just reciting lines</em>, I tell myself. </p><p>Though it does no good to console me or my unease. </p><p>“Tell me, Mare, do you remember the names of all your executioners? Or even the names of all our targets in the Sun Shooting?”</p><p>The answer is cruel and unforgiving in its simplicity. </p><p>
  <em>I don’t. </em>
</p><p>“My mother tells me that you promised yourself that if you ever had to resort to murder, you would remember their names. Clearly, you failed yourself or you just don’t care enough to try anymore. Which one is it?”</p><p>I want to spit at his feet. </p><p>Instead, through sheer willpower, I try to recall all of their names, beginning with the Sun Shooting targets, if only to prove him wrong. </p><p>Lucas Samos. Belicos Leloran....</p><p>I can’t remember the rest. </p><p>The answer lands inside of me, falling like a heavy stone.</p><p>He closes some distance between us, only making me more aware of how cold I feel. </p><p>“Reynald Iral. Belicos Lerolan. Lucas Samos. Ellyn Macanthos,” he recites with perfect memory, his teeth gleaming white in the dark. </p><p>“The only reason I remember them and all of your executioners is because of the amount of paperwork and trouble you’ve caused us over them,” he explains. </p><p>When I don’t answer, he draws back ever so slightly, disappointed with me. </p><p>A cat mourning the loss of a mouse. </p><p>
  <em>So why don’t I feel like one?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why don’t I feel like prey in the path of a predator? </em>
</p><p>Maven tilts his head at me, and I know his next words are intended to hurt me. </p><p>“You and I are alike, and no amount of saving those people on the list will change that truth.”</p><p>That’s what provokes me the most: his articulation of my very fears.</p><p>I hate how easily he says such things, how he names my every monster and ghost without even trying. I hate that he feels what I feel brimming within me. I hate that we share the same fears. </p><p>
  <em>I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. </em>
</p><p>What is so wrong with me that I can empathize with a monster like him? Where did I go wrong?</p><p>If I could stop being like this, I would.   </p><p>My hand closes around the white column of his throat with a ferociousness that astounds even me as I jump to my feet. </p><p>This was a long time coming, ever since the first moment my eyes met his in this room. </p><p>Why did I bother listening to him, letting his poison work and fester in me? </p><p><em>He’s corrupting me with each word, infecting me with the same disease that has long consumed him</em>, I tell myself. </p><p>His eyes bear on me with an intensity that leaves me reluctant, though it’s a mere second or two. </p><p>I have to straddle him down to achieve the desired effect, having to bow down his shoulders with my calloused hands.</p><p>I tighten my grip until I feel him make a noise that vibrates beneath the pads of my thumb and index finger, resounding against the flat surface of my palm.</p><p>The muscles and sinews of his neck yield in all too easily. His heat suffuses throughout the rest of the room, pounding in time with his now staccato heartbeat. </p><p>I intend to enforce the pressure when I feel him shift ever so slightly, his thighs astride mine brushing against me on their own accord, an invitation. </p><p>He’s unmistakably hard against me.</p><p>When I jerk away my hands from his throat like he’s burned me, a noise of disapproval escapes him. </p><p>“You’re sick, you’re sick-” I mutter at him as he intakes long gulps of air. </p><p>My hands have left imprints on his skin, in shapes that outline my fingers.</p><p>For a moment, all I can think is how easily he’d bruise, how his skin was so fragile and soft beneath my hands. </p><p>His mouth is at the ridge of my ear then, his hair brushing over the flesh of my neck as he inhales sharply, still gathering his breath. </p><p>“You’re lonely, just like me,” he starts. </p><p>I wish I could shut him out and his next words. </p><p>“The people who bleed the same color as you don’t even understand you or trust you. There’s no one like you, no one that is a storm in skin."</p><p>His hands embark on a journey down to my palms now.</p><p>"You hate yourself, you hate the ways of the world but you can’t stop yourself from being pulled just like the rest. You’re afraid and hungry. You’ve been hungry all your life, but you didn’t let yourself feel it. Couldn’t when what you wanted was in front of you but was simply unattainable, out of question."</p><p>A beat, a pause. The sudden silence a cacophony to my ears</p><p>"And now that you know that you’re not a simple Red, you can’t stop <em> wanting</em>. All you’ve ever known in all your life is to <em>want</em>. And the anger...the anger won’t stop gnawing at you. You’re either devouring or being devoured. You burn, you freeze. You know no middle, no balance. You want freedom, but you have no idea what that even resembles like.” </p><p>He stares at me with his terrible eyes, stripping and dissecting me with his words and accusations and understandings as I gauge him out.</p><p>He doesn’t bother asking if he’s right or not. </p><p>He already knows.</p><p>I know hunger, its selfish and wolfish way, how it turns you inside and out, how it demands everything and grieves nothing. </p><p>Hunger is the least servile, tameable thing in this world and it makes monsters out of us all. </p><p>I knew hunger in the Stilts, how it forced me to steal from people who had it as worse as me. </p><p>Then the bitter <em>ache, </em>the unreasonable harsh and biting <em>want </em>to take something beautiful just <em>because</em>. </p><p>It stopped being a practice of <em>to keep us all alive, to survive </em>sometime ago.</p><p>My hunger knew no bounds, and still does not know them now, not even when it encounters people just as desperate and starving as me. </p><p>Maven doesn’t know what it’s like to starve, how it’s like to slough off body fat from the days of your youth until you’re worn thin, what’s it like to cast your eyes skyward, tracking the blue expanse of the sky in some vain hope that you don’t dare voice out loud. </p><p>If. If. If. </p><p>That word that digs at you with sharp claws and even sharper intentions.</p><p>Ifs are nothing in this world.</p><p>No, the hunger in Maven’s eyes is not the same brand of hunger, but an echo of it. </p><p>For a moment, all I can do is try to fight the hunger, strangle it out of me. </p><p>I have to stifle and repress it somehow, contain it like a water spill. </p><p>I feel myself propel forward by some emotion that compels me, unsure of whether or not I want to tear him apart or craft some half-baked lie when his hand lands in the jut of my hips, underneath the nightdress. </p><p>A little closer and his forefinger would find me searing hot and wet beneath his lithe hands. </p><p>His mouth attaches itself against my ear again, expelling quiet breaths.  </p><p>My back against his chest, his arms against mine, encircling me like a noose.</p><p>I can feel his need pressed against me, behind his fine clothes.</p><p>I don’t give him the satisfaction of being acquiescent, refusing to dislodge myself, to flinch. </p><p>He will not get that from me at the very least. </p><p>His voice is a soft, heady thing, a bird ready to take flight.</p><p>“You’re just as hungry as me, Mare. You just wear it better.”</p><p>I close my eyes, try to quell the sheer answering <em>want </em>that threatens to overwhelm me and rob me of my senses. </p><p>Something ignites inside of me, leaving me aching for something I’m not willing to name. </p><p>I don’t want to know what dormant thing he has awakened in me, what awful, debased thing he unearthed to the surface from the recesses of my mind. </p><p>He doesn’t ask me to submit, though the implicit suggestion of <em>letting go </em>is there.</p><p>
  <em>It’s not the same thing. </em>
</p><p>In the darkness that engulfs both of us, I can admit all the dark, intimate truths that want to consume me. </p><p>The most unnerving, most unsettling thing is that he doesn’t tell me I’m sick and depraved. </p><p>
  <em>He doesn’t have to. </em>
</p><p>There is no solace, no sanctuary to be found from yourself. No matter how hard you try to outrun your own psyche. </p><p>“I’ll <em>kill </em>you. You and her. One day. You know that, right?” My voice comes out in an animal snarl, unlike me and too much like me in the same measure, all at once. </p><p>He laughs, though I hear the acid imbued in his voice. </p><p>He knows that even if I win, I’ll be losing something regardless. That suits him just fine. </p><p>“Maybe,” is his only reply to that threat.</p><p>I’m the monster’s demise.</p><p>
  <em>I have to be. </em>
</p><p>“I will, I promise you. And I’m a woman of my word, unlike you.” It’s an assurance to him as much as me. </p><p>A slip of phrase taken away from him. </p><p>A thief then, a thief always. </p><p>I’m in constant metamorphoses these days, morphing and forging into something new and terrible with each twist and turn. </p><p>One of these days, I will become worthless to everyone, a tool, an instrument with no use. </p><p>To Command, to Farley, to the rest of the newbloods. </p><p>Today is not that day. </p><p>Maven knows there are things he can still take away from me.</p><p>“You don’t have to hide from <em>me</em>, not like this. Not in a dream, at the very least.” </p><p>The realization is a dull one, barely making a dent in the mess of all my thoughts.</p><p>I had my suspicions. </p><p>Here’s the confirmation. </p><p>Of course he wouldn’t be here.</p><p>
  <em>Why would he? When everyone leaves you?</em>
</p><p>He has councils to lord over and subjects to seduce into submission. He doesn’t belong in the meager excuse of my room, just larger than a broom closet.</p><p>He looks so corporeal, so real that I can caress his cheek and check for a pulse and still wouldn’t feel anything amiss. </p><p>“Why are you <em> here</em>?” I ask, eyes narrowed, even though some part of me already knows. </p><p>I’m just delaying the inevitable.</p><p>“You wanted me here. To forget.”</p><p>
  <em>And to remember.  </em>
</p><p>To maintain the fantasy, the illusion of that unassuming boy for just a little longer. To erase that terrible sight of his hollow eyes. </p><p>I don’t bother even warring with that confession. I don’t bother asking him again if anything we shared was real or when he gave up on me. </p><p>He wouldn’t know. He’s just the echo of a boy I’ve materialized to keep me company.  </p><p>I seize him with all the frustration coursing through me, my body colliding with his with the force of my pull. </p><p>I know I’ve committed a mistake the moment my mouth slants over his, capturing his lips between mine with such violence that I’m surprised he doesn’t push me away. </p><p>My knuckles settle over his elbow and his jaw, stilling him until he relents to my control.</p><p>Kissing Maven reminds me of the pang of pain only an opened wound can bring. </p><p>There’s no finesse or softness when I bite down on the soft, supple flesh of his mouth, all too aware of the silver that has crept up on his neck, towards his ears. </p><p>I bite his bottom lip some more, until his lips part and he grants me entry, letting me claim and ravage the shock of his mouth until his breaths come out in light-headed rasps from the kisses that are more teeth than tongue. </p><p>Maven tastes just like he did when he kissed me on that day on the boat, with wind in our hair and rage in our hearts. </p><p>He is my black mirror. </p><p>
  <em>My hatred, my hunger, my wrath reflected back at me.</em>
</p><p>I realize too late that I’m shaking. Not from fear but the anticipating building in my gut, stoking the fire below my belly until all I can think is how badly I want to ruin him. </p><p>
  <em>Ruin him and his beautiful, princely face that begs to be marked and prettily bruised. </em>
</p><p>I let him go for a moment, taking in lung gulps of cold air. </p><p>There was a certain freedom in that one moment, with no cameras and no crowds to judge me. </p><p>Only him and me, the supposed manifestations of the same sickness. </p><p>He told me I’m no hero. </p><p>And at this moment, I don’t feel like one.</p><p>Maybe I haven’t felt like one for a long time.</p><p>I pant desperately, grappling with my shortness of breath until I’m placing my weight over him again.</p><p>Even in my dreams, he exhausts me.  </p><p>I’m mostly a petite thing, short and compact, riddled with a ghastly film of fading bruises on my spine and stomach. </p><p>He lets me straddle him without a bark of complaint still, his eyes set on my collarbones, his gaze fixed at his brand. </p><p>For a moment, his stare is innocuous and more bemused than anything. Then one of his hands palms my breast, traces the outline of me through the nightdress. </p><p>His mouth starts at my collarbone, drawing a faint line of kisses down, careful to avoid the small patch of skin that is his brand. Then lower, lower until he’s inching my nightdress down with a painstaking slowness and circling a pebbled peak with his mouth, tweaking the other hard nub with his fingers. </p><p>I slap him away, not wanting these last hours to be tender. </p><p>Tenderness is not a language I understand. </p><p>Even when I was a little girl, I was too accustomed to breaking too many things.</p><p>
  <em>Wanting something to hurt like I did. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Craving my mother’s and father’s approval and liking, wanting to not be the shadow while Gisa beamed like the sun. For my body to be worthy of something more than ending up as fertilizer for the soil at Choke. </em>
</p><p>All I know is bloody and bruised knuckles and the rage that follows me wherever I go.</p><p>The only teacher that has ever taught me anything of note is first-hand pain, the most demanding of them all.</p><p>I do not know how to yield, even to my own whims. </p><p>Perhaps that’s why he has to push me. </p><p>I can never be a soft thing, no matter how they dress me up and parade me around. </p><p>“Why did you keep it?”</p><p>I could tell him sweet lies, that we couldn’t find a healer willing to mend the skin back together when I’m on the run. </p><p>I click my teeth together, feel my tongue run across the roof of my mouth, against my gums. </p><p>“I wanted to remember what kind of a monster you are,” I tell him bluntly, maneuvering his deft fingers until two breach inside of me.</p><p>That shuts him up for good. </p><p>I focus on pumping his fingers inside of me and out, shifting until I find the right pace. I swallow the groan that wants to escape me, rocking back and forth, urging his ministrations faster with the motion.</p><p>He complies, watching me arch underneath his long lashes as I force another digit inside of me with a reckless impatience, watching it join with the others. He observes me well enough, mapping the place that incites a stream of moans when I make him curl his fingers against that right spot. </p><p>I lock my hands around his shoulders, giving him minuscule shocks when he dares to let up the pace, though from the way his mouth tilts at me savagely, I think he rather enjoys it. </p><p>“How do you know I’m not imagining your brother right now?” I whisper at him cruelly, if only to provoke him. “I could be imagining him now, right here, beside me, inside of me.”</p><p>His fingers scissor inside of me only faster at that, knuckle-deep in vengeance at the mention of Cal, malice and spite alight in his eyes. </p><p>“Don’t,” he warns, uncaring as my nightdress rips at the seam with the push and pull of the splay he has on my waist. </p><p>I bristle. </p><p>Even now, he pretends that he’s in control. </p><p>He’s not a king here. </p><p>In my bed, he’s only that unassuming boy that I’m exorcising from my dreams and memories.</p><p>I refrain from snarling at him like an ensnared animal, a spider caught in its own glimmering web threads. </p><p>I can only think of the time when I accompanied Kilorn in one of his hunting trips, a few weeks ago.</p><p>A fox got itself caught in a barbed fence, trying to bite through it with its teeth. Its leg was cut down to the bone. </p><p>Even though there was some recognition in the fox’s eyes, even though it knew there was barbed wire and that it would hurt itself, the fox still risked the pain and misery for the promise of a few berries. </p><p>It only knew of its hunger and its need, didn’t care for the risks and the very sure possibility of being cut open. </p><p>I feel like that fox now, having made a gamble for just a few berries that might end up killing me in the end. </p><p>The muscles of my thighs strain against him, burning from the effort of it all. I feel heavy and empty all at once, not satiated at all.</p><p>I haven’t been touched like this in a long time and now the need for <em>more </em>is insistent, blaring through me.</p><p>For a moment, I wonder if I can ever purge this need out of me.  </p><p>To not be alone, to be not useless, to have and to take. </p><p>There is no one in the emptiness of the darkness to shame me and to ridicule me for it, at least. </p><p>Just me and the apparition I’ve summoned. </p><p>I feel the familiar coil building in my stomach, the first thrills of an oncoming orgasm. </p><p>
  <em>No, not like this.</em>
</p><p>I reach for him, dragging him hard by his shoulders until his dark curls are nestled between my parted legs. </p><p>I’m sure he’s smiling now, all too pleased with himself. </p><p>His mouth ventures in a serpentine path between my thighs, to my core, and drives inside of me with ease, needing little guidance. </p><p>His tongue laps at my folds eagerly, gliding against my core with a speed that has me grasping harshly at his hair, forcing him and his hot, almost scalding tongue down. </p><p>To my chagrin, he has a talented mouth. </p><p>I bite so hard on my lip I taste blood, thankful that he’s too preoccupied to gaze up at me, to track my responses.</p><p>I don’t let him relent for a moment, feeling lava coursing through my veins with each suckle and long, indulgent swipe of his tongue. </p><p>He eats me out until my entire vision swims with pleasure and I feel my legs shake and quiver, taut as a string, on the verge of snapping.</p><p>It’s difficult to cling to rationality and pretense of reason.</p><p>So I let go. </p><p>I don’t bother stifling my moans when my orgasm rips through me, acute and severe.</p><p>Dimly, I think that his tongue should be always used for this purpose instead of the awful lies and rhetoric he spews out these days. </p><p>His eyes glint mischievously in the darkness, drinking in the sight of me flushed crimson as if it's his earned reward. </p><p>I aim a glare at him, reminded of the boy I thought he was. </p><p>He just glows and basks in my wrath. </p><p>My mind burns with memories. </p><p>I remember him reading to me patiently in his gentle voice, not the dusty old tomes that Julian was fond of, but the books that spoke of faraway lands and faraway adventures.</p><p>I had thought it was because we were both sick of this world, because we shared the same dream, Red and Silver united and equal. </p><p>“Enjoying yourself?” Maven asks, retracting from my legs with a languid, unhurried movement. </p><p>I must look like a wreck, my chest heaving as I try to pull myself together again, but so does he. </p><p>His hair is unruly, plastered to his forehead. His mouth shines. </p><p>“Lay down and take off your clothes.”</p><p>It’s a guttural command from the back of my throat, and he complies with the first part almost immediately, shifting his weight down so I can straddle him properly again. </p><p>I abandon my nightdress against the wood flooring, glad to be relieved of the uncomfortable, rough material that clung to my skin.</p><p>I’m bare as I can ever be, but I’m unabashed. </p><p>He already has exposed me and bared me with his words minutes ago. No use to be ashamed now. </p><p>At the back of my hazy mind, I’m all too aware that this is a temporary solution to close the gaping wound of his absence. </p><p>He’s not my cure and I’m not his. </p><p>If he’s a fantasy, he’s a fantasy I want to entertain for only an hour or two and nothing more. </p><p>But even in my most gentle imaginings and my most intricate fantasies, my anger dwarfs my need, urging me to maim him, to <em>hurt </em>him. </p><p>In my dreams, I can be honest with myself, with what I want. </p><p>I glance back at the image of the boy king sprawled in my bed, trapped, though I’m sure he doesn’t think of it as such. </p><p>“You know, Mare...” Maven muses out loud, all theatrics as I mount myself on his torso. </p><p>“I think the reason why you want me to be that boy so badly is so you can tell yourself that you can’t empathize with someone like me.”</p><p>
  <em>I loathe him.</em>
</p><p>I go rigid, tensing above him. </p><p>If he savors the sight of my tangible tension, he doesn’t make a show of it. </p><p>He’s given me a good excuse as any to wrap my hands around his slender neck, and I think that’s exactly what he wants, but I’m not in a state to care much for his wants and needs. </p><p>
  <em>It’s my night. </em>
</p><p>“What did I tell you?’ I ask him sharply, and the words whistle through my teeth like wind through reeds, though it’s more of a warning than anything. </p><p>The only warning he’s allowed. </p><p>I feel silk, dark fabric brush against my thigh instead of bare skin. </p><p>Maven clicks his tongue but obliges me, popping off all the buttons torturously slow as if he’s intent on tantalizing me, testing my already lacking patience. </p><p>I force myself to wait, though my frayed nerves already suggest to fry him alive. </p><p>One more button unclasped and a rough handling by me and he’s finally naked below me. </p><p>His skin, lean and light, looks paler when pressed against mine, alabaster white against my brown. </p><p>His exhales come in little pants, and he’s throbbing and half hard underneath me and all I can think of is how much I want to hear him beg for it. </p><p>The thought of it is all too enticing and irresistible, especially when I can recall how he made me plead for my life and Cal’s in the Bowl of Bones.</p><p>My hips, flush against his, undulate against him as I push forward and back like a pendulum, seeking friction more than anything. </p><p>He swells beneath me after minutes of being left unattended, drawing in a sharp intake of breath, his touch fiery against the protrusion of my hips. </p><p>“Don’t burn me,” I hiss at him, </p><p>His temperature calms down, just enough. </p><p>But he’s still unwilling to beg to me.</p><p>I grit my teeth. </p><p>He might as well close his eyes and prolong the inevitable. </p><p>Funny how when he won me over a few months ago, it was by giving me exactly what I thought I wanted and now he won’t give it to me.</p><p>Not for the price I’m asking. </p><p>I refrain from choking him again. </p><p>
  <em>Not now. </em>
</p><p>My eyes are narrowed to slits when I drag myself over him again, just brushing my hands against his navel and then down to the length of him. Not enough to be a full stroke, but just the hint of it.  </p><p>For a moment, I wonder if he’ll just resort to touching himself.</p><p>Then he breaks down for me, choking back on a wanton whine that is laced with the most illicit and alluring things, gnawing on his lips.</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>It’s one simple word, uttered softly against my ear. </p><p>Somehow, he manages to make it brim with desperation and sheer need. </p><p>It breaks away at my apprehension. </p><p>His eyes don’t look like cold, living ice for a moment.</p><p>I can even convince myself that I recognize this boy, though the vehemence I have for him forbids me so. </p><p>I smile in the dark, and for a reason I cannot fathom, it reminds me of the girl from the tale reimaginings, her wild grin before she burned the king and the prince in the embers of the old world. </p><p>
  <em>I wonder which one he is. </em>
</p><p>My hands wound against his shoulder blades, bracing myself against him as my legs settle over his heated skin with a finality that feels like death.</p><p>I sink down on him, inch by inch, and watch as Maven strains, his body enveloping mine, mine accommodating his until we’re bound together. </p><p>His knuckles turn white against the bed sheet, clutching it to anchor himself as I set a shallow, slow pace. </p><p>“When I was sixteen, I slept with one of my brother’s friends,” I tell him conversationally as I ride him, wanting to inflict pain, wanting him to bleed, to <em>hurt</em>. </p><p>I’m telling the truth. He is hardly my first. </p><p>I’ve had enough blind fumblings to put the old fabrication of him to shame, though I don't think the creature in front of me is capable of it. </p><p>I can almost feel him grit his teeth, knuckles trailing to my hips and tightening on the flesh there. </p><p>Maven’s hands brush over my sounder scars in retaliation, renewing the pain of their memory.</p><p>“Did I ever tell you that Cal made that blasted thing? He was so proud of himself too, you should have seen it.”</p><p>
  <em>Cut for cut. </em>
</p><p>I know he wants this as slow and teasing as possible, to draw this out longer to torment me. </p><p>I offer him a false, jagged smile in response before I steady myself on him and the bed frame as leverage, quickening the pace to a brutal one that forces him against the wall, my hands restraining his above his head. </p><p>He doesn’t protest, doesn’t recoil, taking it so well. </p><p>“I’ll <em>thank </em>your brother for you,” I murmur, laughing against the shell of his ear at the deep frown that mars his face at that, though the laughter sounds too bitter to even resemble my genuine one. </p><p>
  <em>Maven used to make me laugh often. </em>
</p><p>His skin ripples against mine smoothly with each thrust as I spread to take more of him. </p><p>He kneads my breasts with warm hands and I have to muffle myself against his shoulder, biting against the tendon and bone.</p><p>I can’t shake away the idea that someone will hear us through the thin walls, even though this is only a dream.</p><p>
  <em>With my luck, even my dreamscape will betray me. </em>
</p><p>I nip at his shoulder, feel his blood pound against his throat in the rhythm of my unabating thrusts. </p><p>The dark smothers the inhibitions of both of us, leaving nothing but full, rich sensations that make up for the somewhat lack of our sight.</p><p>I’m sure that I’m drawing blood from him, that my nails are leaving crescents on his otherwise pristine skin, and I confirm it when I retract a hand from his shoulder blade, feel the silver blood coalescing in my palm.</p><p>It...feels <em> good. </em></p><p>Not wrong, even though it is. </p><p>Everything about this is so wholly, irrevocably <em>wrong. </em> </p><p>But then again, I’m told daily my entire existence is. </p><p>So maybe the contents of my dreams are not something to fret over while I'm experiencing them. </p><p>“Are you happy?” I ask, meaning all kinds of things. </p><p>I know that he can’t possibly know, that he’s a product of my mind and only what I can hope to guess at, but I still can’t help but wonder in a manner that eats up at me. </p><p>The look that sets on his face is my answer. </p><p>“No? The crown that you wanted so badly doesn’t please you? Being king isn’t what you dreamt of?” I goad him mercilessly. </p><p>It’s his turn to draw blood, his nails scratching at my waist as I roll my hips against him in unquestioning, unconcerned demand. </p><p>“Yes,” he admits, so quiet and small that it’s almost unintelligible.</p><p>He repeats it louder when I dig my nails at his sides, wanting to hear it, wanting to shed him of all his pretense and any claim to superiority.  </p><p>Wanting to know that he’s as sullen and unhappy as me. </p><p>
  <em>Misery does love company, after all.</em>
</p><p>The Maven in my dreams, for all his disguises and his smoke screens, cannot pretend to be something he’s not during this kind of thing. </p><p>I can only wonder if the same could be said of the real boy. </p><p>But even pleasure leaves just a sliver of space for deception and falsehood. </p><p>Pain, true pain is the only elixir for extracting the truth. </p><p>Pain rings true in the body. </p><p>It is not something that can be ignored. </p><p>I’m sure that Maven knows this intimately, more than I ever will, what with his Merandus mother and the free reign he grants her to his mind. </p><p>I want to unspool his brain, where there are no defenses, and have an undisturbed inspection of it, to sift and sieve through what he thinks, what he is, to try to guess at what sickness plagues us both. </p><p>“Because of me,” I tell him, a statement more than a question because the answer is already known to me. </p><p>I can only wonder if he can feel the phantom pain of his brand whenever I touch the accursed thing, if he misses me in the same horrid, raw way I miss him. </p><p>He bites at his own mouth, trying not to reveal anything damning, trying not to unravel for me. </p><p>He’s going to have to eventually. </p><p>I slap him hard across his face, and I can’t tell if it’s simply because I enjoy the sight of him in pain and in need or because the truth necessitates pain. </p><p>If I did it with a bit more momentum, I could have made hot tears well in his eyes. </p><p>How many times has he made cry? </p><p>He doesn’t whimper out in pain, doesn’t dare let his eyes off of me. </p><p>He must have had his own share of pain too. </p><p>Maybe that explains why he hasn’t softened inside of me, not one bit. </p><p>His breathing is ragged, coming out in uncontrollable bursts. Even Elara Merandus’ mold won’t hold firm. </p><p>Nothing in life fully does.</p><p>With enough brute force, you can break anything and everything. </p><p>“Because I missed you,” is all Maven says, the words sincere, offering me the sordid answer to the true question. </p><p>It’s what I exactly wanted to hear and the direct opposite of it, all at once. </p><p>I was right. </p><p>Pain works splendidly well with him. </p><p>“You hate that you want me,” I say, my voice as powerful as Mareena’s when my hands brush against his nape, then his throat, feeling the rabbit pulse of his heartbeat. </p><p>
  <em>Coward. Coward. Coward.</em>
</p><p>The shame registers in every crevice of his face. </p><p>It’s as good as any answer.</p><p>I reel with the fact that shame has a taste and a palpable sound in the dark. And that it is intoxicating.</p><p>“You hate that the crown and an entire kingdom can’t even please you,” I tell him now, not bothering to even pose it as a question. </p><p>Like every act of cruelty exchanged between us, my questions and these exchanges of barbed answers snowball into something wretched, an escalation of sorts. </p><p>The more and more I let myself talk, this becomes less of his conquest and more of mine. </p><p>He taught me just enough of himself for me to draw a discernible shape of him in the dark with all the fragments I have. </p><p>I don’t let him close his eyes, don’t let him deny the truth. </p><p>I don’t want this to be a performance, a calculation like everything with him. I’m done with costumes in the realm of my dreams.</p><p>In the waking world, I can let myself be paraded around. </p><p>But not here, not now. </p><p>My hand lingers across the expanse of his exposed throat, tightening now as my thrusts come hard and fast and rough, arching against him to change the angle, feeling another orgasm bubbling inside of me.</p><p>I deny myself what I want for now, slowing down as the question I wanted to ask all along dawns on me.  </p><p>Maven remains rooted, lets me maneuver him whichever way I want. </p><p>His pulse threads against my fingers, then my mouth. Then my teeth are scraping against his throat again and again, holding him down. </p><p>I can feel his moans and gasps vibrate and tremble against the block at his throat, against my fingers as he seeks purchase convulsively at my shoulders, my hips.</p><p>I wonder what I look like. If I look as debauched as Maven. </p><p>There’s no mirror in my room, and I think I’m grateful for it now. </p><p>There’s a large mirror in the antechamber of the main hall we share in one of these tunnels, a mirror that often gets grimy before I’m even there. Only my name thins out the lines. And even then, that’s not a guarantee.</p><p>I look at myself often as I dare in that mirror, and every day, without fail, I can’t recognize whose face stares back at me. </p><p>Would I now? Would I recognize what I’ve become, what I’ve been shaped into? What essential, fundamental part of me I shed or maybe found?</p><p>It’s not physical. I haven’t grown any scales or an extra limb or anything of the sort. </p><p>Whatever has happened in me, whatever has broken in me, it makes me feel free. </p><p>All I can feel is freedom, the freedom of not really being in my skin for once. </p><p>I can pretend I’m just a common Red girl, or maybe just another Silver. </p><p>Does it matter, in the end? </p><p>The flies come for you regardless. </p><p>My shoulders don’t feel heavy at all anymore. </p><p>There’s just only a sense of potent pleasure that thrums in my belly, my gut. </p><p>It’s invigorating and absolutely agitating. </p><p>The inhuman hunger in me doesn’t wax and wane, a constant sensation that reverberates through my bones.</p><p>I once told Maven that his lies would strangle him. </p><p>
  <em>Am I not one of his lies?</em>
</p><p>My senses buzz with the feeling of an oncoming storm, feeling it churning outside, bolts of lightning striking the skies and painting it in bright flashes of static purple, the sound of it clear and sure among our labored breathing. </p><p>Maven’s eyes glaze at the sound of it, marveling at something he cannot see but just hear and <em>feel </em>as his cock slides in and out of me. </p><p>Somehow, he knows the lightning and the rain belongs to me. </p><p>He’s so attuned to my voice that he hears me above it all. </p><p>“Do you dream of me?” I ask him the crucial question of the night, feeling myself at the edge of a precipice that beckons me close. </p><p>The fall before the catharsis. </p><p>The catharsis that he owes me. For all the nights he’s worn me down, for telling me that everything was a lie. </p><p>His crimes against me are innumerable and I’m due an apology he can only give me in this dream. </p><p>It won’t appease me fully, won’t placate or pacify my hunger to hurt him forever. </p><p>But it’s a start. </p><p>I loosen my grasp on him, letting go of his neck, grabbing a fistful of his hair until his neck stretches with the motion. </p><p>His head is thrown back as he coughs and sucks in air before I reach for him. </p><p>My kiss is just as violent as the first time, open-mouthed as I claim his lips between mine, my teeth and tongue tangling with his forcefully. </p><p>No dice. </p><p>Change of plans, then. </p><p>Maven’s pulse is erratic when I graze over his throat with my mouth, peppering it with harsh bites that leave marks.</p><p>“Mare-” he warns, inhaling sharply as he tries to find a way to defy me, to avoid the blatant trap of the question. </p><p>My chest heaves in expectation and anticipation, suppressing myself from squeezing the answer out of him.</p><p>I want him to say it. </p><p>I want him to be unguarded and honest with me for these last seconds, these last minutes we have.</p><p>My self-acceptance of his accusations in exchange for his honesty. </p><p>“Do you? Do you think of me late at night?” Maven closes his eyes shut tightly, unwilling to answer. </p><p>I don’t stop, unable to help myself and my curiosity.</p><p>“Do you wish I was there? That you could touch me?” </p><p>I demand to be let in. He can’t tell we are alike and refuse me, keep me out like this. </p><p>You can’t offer a girl gracious hospitality and then bar her from knowing your identity. </p><p>That’s why the prince burns in that tale. </p><p>Because the girl wants to know who he is, because all she’s known is the soft cruelty and disappointment that lurks in every word that comes from her mother and father and just about everyone else. </p><p>Because even though the prince is cold and conceals himself, he is the first person that doesn’t shame her and her hunger, that opens himself to the idea of being used by her. </p><p>The monster in that story isn’t the girl or the king or really, the prince. </p><p>He’s only a useless vassal meant to embody the hunger for power, just as the king is empty and devoid of much of anything except the hunger of his nobles, the kind of hunger that only knows the strength and glory of war and tradition and nothing else. </p><p>The girl does not know what she hungers for. </p><p>That’s why her curiosity is her doom. </p><p>She will always be uselessly, indefinitely hungry unless she kills the prince and the king in that little bygone cottage and lets their ashes decide for her. </p><p>Perhaps the prince would have been spared if he was more truthful from the beginning, if he didn’t keep her in the dark and waited for her to be of use. </p><p>The girl is a dull sword that needs sharpening, just a small nudge.</p><p>That is all. </p><p>“Do you want me to take off your flamemaker bracelets?” I ask Maven in a thinly veiled threat. </p><p>Without it, he would be utterly vulnerable. He knows this all too well.</p><p>His jaw works, the shame in his eyes emerging and fleeting in the span of a mere second or two before he gathers the nerve to stare at me. </p><p>“I dreamt* of you,” he says. He doesn’t even have to confirm the rest of my accusations. </p><p>It’s enough for me. </p><p>I pull him forward to me with a newfound appreciation at the gasps that he makes when my hand tightens on his throat again, the familiar and delightful feeling spiking at my gut. </p><p>The pace turns as brutal as before, the wood frame colliding against the wall with the punishing speed I set for us.</p><p>The wood frame makes obscene, filthy little noises, the companion to the renewed moans that sputter from the both of us.</p><p>My thighs surge and pitch forward with his pelvis, my hands squeezing hard at his jugular until I’m sure his eyes roll back in his head, his vision close to whiting out on him. </p><p>It’s a striking sight to witness, a sight that I want to brand into my memory. </p><p>
  <em>I’m making him suffer, I’m giving him his own medicine.</em>
</p><p>Maven is not so eloquent now, only capable of the kind of moaning that graces my ears with a broken kind of desperation, underlined with something I cannot name. </p><p>“What would your lords think if they knew their little king was underneath me now, writhing?” I taunt against his ear. </p><p>Silence and labored breathing is the only thing that greets my ears. </p><p>“That he can’t stop thinking about the girl that wants to destroy his crown and his throne? That their sons and daughters are dying for nothing at all?”</p><p>He can’t give me a coherent answer, not with my hands around his pretty throat. </p><p>And I don’t even want one. It’s enough to feel him ashamed, unmasked and deconstructing against me like a precarious house of cards. </p><p>It’s the most heady sensation in this terrible world besides the power of my ability.</p><p>I could get drunk on it.</p><p>“Let me-” Maven struggles through bated breaths and stutters, a true plea that I can’t help but relish.</p><p>“Not until I do,” is my harsh answer whispered against his ear.</p><p>He doesn’t falter my rhythm, knowing better than to tempt my wrath as his hands delve to the inside of my thighs, drawing profound circles at my clit that elicit little shocks against his skin.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck, don’t stop-”</p><p>He doesn’t, obeying me as he strokes away at that nub furiously until I twitch and feel my muscles contract against the hammering thrusts. </p><p>It’s the fuel to the fire until I clench around him fully, which is enough to crest my pleasure. </p><p>The second orgasm of the day tears through me with forceful, visceral violence.</p><p>I feel my body snap through the intensity of it all, an undoing like a little death.  </p><p>I hit the bottom of the precipice.</p><p>
  <em>My catharsis.  </em>
</p><p>The faint, muted groan coming from Maven is the only indication that he found his own release besides the come coating my thighs. </p><p>He’s quiet, even through his own ruin. </p><p>Maybe if I had more time, had the energy and the stamina left for it, I could have tried to make him scream. </p><p>I let my grip on his neck go slack, panting as I try to collect my bearings. </p><p>I feel like I’ve been scorched by a sinful, beautiful blue-flame fire, and I can even feel the remnants of it blaring through me, wanting to ignite in me or burn me to smithereens. </p><p>I can’t tell which. </p><p>Some part of me longs to burn and be burned in equal measure, with an appetite that would scare me if I confessed to it. </p><p>I don’t intend to admit defeat or even tentative surrender in the only land I have control of, even if it’s only the land of dreams. </p><p>Maven has only now managed to catch his breath, his chest heaving up and down before he seizes me abruptly with his hands that feel like claws. </p><p>I go down, underneath him as he appraises me for a moment, seeing something that I have no hope of understanding. </p><p>His forefinger caresses the swell of my cheek, the parting of my mouth, his hands disturbingly soft as he whispers to me, quiet as the passing of seconds, of minutes, of months, of years. </p><p>Quiet in the way he’s been all his life, in the shadows. </p><p>He’s only more dangerous in the shadows. </p><p>“That’s all I wanted to give to you.” Maven tells me. </p><p>I blink at him, trying to understand what he’s getting at until it strikes me. </p><p>He thinks he’s given me freedom, the kind of freedom that one gains when they understand themselves in their darkest corners. When they’re behind the wheel and not the other way around. The most difficult kind of freedom because the mind is a trickster and conceals itself with shrouds and veils of all kinds, knows how to hide and twist, how to bend so well that you can only see two steps in front of you. </p><p>I know my brothers, how Shade shields himself from any semblance of pain with his incessant quips and jokes and his happy-go-lucky manner that never fails to charm anyone. How he knows how to make even my father smile and hide his own misgivings and sorrow, how he’s become the embodiment of a bandage for our family, the kind that only knows how to heal and never to ask for healing, even when he can’t stop bleeding. That’s why he’s always moving, jumping through his own troubles so he can save others. It’s easier to call himself a hero than to let himself always bleed. <em> His ability fits him so well.  </em></p><p>I know Bree, how he tried so badly to escape the weariness and boredom of the life that was drawn for him at his birth, how he always wanted to live a life of escapade and constant pleasures, his years characterized by blind fumblings with girls in alleyways in the hopes that he would ward off the reality of a war waiting for him, of a box just waiting for his remains. He’d only eat and sleep, for what else was there to do? To become haggard and tired, just thinking of what kind of mine he would trip on like the rest of little boys in the Stilts? </p><p>I know Tramy, how he’s burdened by his own height and weight, how he hates that when people see him, they only see a copy of Bree, just only a few inches shorter. How he would rather plant flowers in the soil and watch them bloom than draw blood. He was always so afraid of blood as a child, so frightened of its coppery smell that it would make him pass out for hours at a time. And only applying ice to his forehead would bring him back to us, to the fate that awaited him in Choke. It didn’t matter if Tramy didn’t want to fight. The war wanted him regardless. </p><p>I know Gisa, how she didn’t dare voice her hopes as she worked tirelessly at her sewing, till her hands stopped shaking and her eyes adjusted to working throughout the night. How she would embroid flowers and gems, the fragrant, gleaming kinds that she would never be able to smell or to own, how she only came to know the world through her fabrics and cloths. How she let herself slowly believe the sweet lies that if she just worked hard enough, if she only tried harder, sewed faster, that she would be our savior. </p><p>And I know my mother and father. How their love encompasses everything, how my mother had a merchant’s son waiting for her hand, how she rejected the merchant’s son for my father and her love for him. How my mother tried her hardest to make something out of us, expected better than what she’d done in her past. How she wished for a better life, but not a different man, how she stayed despite everything. I know my father and his quiet anger, how he’s come to hate himself. How he yearns for working legs, to just be able to hold my mother in his arms fully again. How he directs his anger at anyone else in public, so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he wishes he didn’t leave for Choke, though it was never much of his choice.  </p><p>I’ve just never really known myself. </p><p>I let myself absorb the wishes of my mother and the weary anger of my father like a sponge, till I was a good for nothing thief that roamed the streets in search of something that I could steal that would give me some meaning, some worth. So that I wouldn't have to face another lecture from my mother as she tied her apron with shaking hands in our kitchen, so that I would have something to lessen the failure of how horribly I did in all of my classes, too bone-tired to care for whatever lies were being sold to us as when we were only children. </p><p>Mareena was just a convenient excuse to slip into a comfortable lie. I didn’t have to think too much, not when Elara would weasel her way into my head with a snappy welcome and a list of people to fool and convince. Not when Farley had her Command and their unending plans and ambitious schemes. Not when Maven held my hand and convinced me that he had me, that he wouldn’t let me fall. </p><p>When Maven let me fall hard, didn’t care if I made it out alive or not, there was nothing to protect me from the reality of what I was when I couldn’t hide behind the legacy of a long dead Silver house. Nothing to protect me from the fact that I was not wholly Red, not wholly Silver, that I was not…Mare Barrow of the Stilts, not Mareena Titanos, not this poster girl that only bleeds for freedom unselfishly. That everything I thought I knew about myself was superimposed on me, and that I didn’t know what I was, <em> not really</em>.</p><p>It’s a lot easier to succumb to people’s definitions and accusations of you, their inventions on who they want you to be. </p><p>I’ve become all too skilled at practicing this kind of death, this kind of suppression of myself.</p><p>Too good at denying myself, the way everyone denied me. </p><p>Always avoiding my own wants, subduing my own needs. </p><p>Smothering my own hunger, stubbornly ignoring the existence of my ability, even when the lightning shields and domes in all the First Fridays called to me, sure as the blood that pumped in my veins. </p><p>I told myself I was being silly. </p><p>
  <em>Surely it was my imagination. </em>
</p><p>Or maybe, just maybe, everyone else felt it too.</p><p><em>Felt the electricity, the hunger crawling inside their veins. </em> </p><p>Maybe I shouldn't want to be anyone else so badly. </p><p>There is no freedom to be had in the skin of others, in the synonyms that people might create, just to guess at what you are. </p><p>Only your true skin knows you, only a certain word truly can encapsulate you. </p><p>Only the right shades can paint you, and nothing less suffices.</p><p>I don’t give Maven the satisfaction of knowing all this or thanking him. </p><p>I don’t owe him a thing, not even in my dreams. </p><p>“You don’t even have your own freedom. Your mother keeps you at her leash. She might have told you that it's for your own good once, and you’ve believed her ever since. But when you falter, when you stumble, when you decide it's time for some autonomy and independence, she won’t let you.” </p><p>Maven’s face falls, the shadows of the room dancing over the planes of his face.  </p><p>This is not the answer he was expecting. </p><p>Not the appreciation he thought he deserved. </p><p>Even now, even in my dreams, Maven is still so desperate for the approval of others, so <em>hungry </em>for validation and acceptance. </p><p>Not my exact brand of hunger but an <em>echo </em>of it. A faint, pale vestige. A vague trace. </p><p>Just the dregs. </p><p>It can’t wither, not when there is his mother, at the very least.</p><p>But given enough time, my hunger might overwhelm his.</p><p>The thought comes to me, unbidden. </p><p>When he leans over me, he looks like an eternal boy of seventeen, just at the cusp of adulthood, but not quite there. </p><p>Seventeen and already a monster. </p><p>His hair curtains his eyes when he brushes his mouth against my forehead, as gentle as rain. </p><p>He’s not as gentle with the lamp that he breaks, which fragments into little slivers of glass on impact when he kicks it over. </p><p>He’s as fast as a sudden death.  </p><p><em>It’s razor-sharp, </em>I think, staring at it protruding from my chest as he pushes and pushes at it until the slip of glass is slick with my blood. </p><p>His eyes are the same shade as the glass, the same shade as his mother’s. </p><p>There is nothing more violent in the world than the tender scrape of his mouth against the expanse of my throat, where my pulse fades into nothing. </p><p>So this is how I shatter.</p><p>I was wrong. </p><p>I’m not the monster’s demise. </p><p>In this reimagining, I’m the monster. </p><p>
  <em>The monster with the hunger that never wanes. </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Heat surrounds me like a coffin in the empty chasm of death, bearing down on me with such a weight that I feel as if I could suffocate on it. </p><p>I wrestle out of the thing that dares to cage me, only to find that it’s not a <em> thing</em>, but a hand and a solid, warm chest. </p><p>I contemplate biting the hand or spitting on the chest, an inclination that is rather all too tempting, only to decide on wrenching the scalding hand away with a force that is more impulse than anything. </p><p>Cal stares at me, his brows furrowed in what can only be concern despite his complicated loyalties. He’s already slipped into the flight suit he will be needing once we board the jet that’s headed for Corros. </p><p>He shifts on the balls of his feet, nervous, alert, but also eager to regain some control over his life, being the only one of us capable of helming an aircraft. </p><p>“Are you alright?” He asks me, his voice barely registering on the sleep-induced haze of my mind as the memories of the dream, no, the nightmare, come back to me, too sharp to be forgotten. </p><p>I hold on to the memories greedily, needing to remember every detail in case I ever forget why I cannot trust Maven Calore, even in my most private fantasies. </p><p>It’ll serve as a good reminder, but it doesn’t lessen the hatred I have for myself and my traitorous mind for daring to summon the image and sound of him for a night, to make me remember his touch, his taste, the feel of him. </p><p>I had falsely thought I had escaped his clutches long ago, thought I earned my freedom with blood and pain, but even in my dreams, he does not leave me alone or unbothered. </p><p>“Yes,” I tell Cal, lying through my teeth, filtering anything that is the truth.  </p><p>If Cal knows I’m lying, he doesn’t make any indication of it. </p><p>I do not tell Cal that I dreamt that I kissed his brother, that I took him inside of me willingly, that I enjoyed hearing him beg, that I like how he looked with my hands around his throat. </p><p>For all his faults and indecisiveness, that is not a card I will play against him. Not when he’s our only hope of surviving Corros alive and in one piece. </p><p>Though Cal has somehow managed to not thin out from our paltry rations, he resembles his brother, save for the bronze, red-gold eyes. The same straight nose, glossy black hair, the regal lines of his face. If it was dark outside and if I partially closed my eyes, I could pretend that he was Maven. </p><p>My breath hitches almost inaudibly when I shift on my bed, still clothed in that nightdress that itches. </p><p>There is a telling wetness between my thighs, and I feel strangely, utterly empty. </p><p>I don’t have to be Julian with his hard-earned wisdom to know what caused this. </p><p>I clamp hard on my teeth, but the awful thought that is more suggestion and need than empty musing already dawns on me, uncaring of its selfishness. </p><p>
  <em>I could make Cal touch me. Quickly enough that we wouldn’t be late. His hands would find the material of my nightdress, and he would push it down as my fingers found his throa-</em>
</p><p>Maven’s voice is there, whispering into my head, assuring me that it would be easy to manipulate him into it, to dismiss his bewildered questions and his insistent concern, to have my way. </p><p>For a terrible moment, Maven's voice and mine twine in my head, his tones encroaching on the depths of my mind.</p><p>An invasion, a trespass of sorts. </p><p>It's silly to think so when he's only a Burner and not a Whisper and yet...</p><p><em>No</em>, I tell myself harshly, trying to summon all of my willpower to deny myself.</p><p>Too frightened to respond to <em>his</em> voice in the pit of my mind.</p><p>Cal wouldn’t let me do such a thing. Would sense something wrong with me if I dared. He’s so tall that I doubt I’d even be able to reach him easily. </p><p>I don’t think he’d even enjoy being choked or being made to beg. He wasn’t raised to. No crown princes and heirs are.</p><p>“I have to leave,” I grit out the words, unable to meet Cal’s eyes. </p><p>“Now? Do you not want to grab some rations first? It’ll be a few hours till we’re there.”</p><p>I nod along with him, only to calm my renewed hatred for myself. I dig at my palms until I’m sure my hands are dotted with my own blood. </p><p>“I’ll just freshen up first then. If you’ll excuse me-”</p><p>I don’t give him time to answer, glad that he hasn’t followed at my heels as I practically speed walk through the passages until I’m facing the same grimy mirror as I always do early in the morning. </p><p>Luckily enough, no one else is here to disturb me. </p><p>The storm gathering overhead breaks, and I can dimly gather the sounds of rainfall. </p><p>The rain is what calls <em>him </em>to mind.</p><p>Phantom hands and mouth and teeth scraping against my throat with open-mouthed kisses, and the searing pain that daggered through me as the slip of glass pierced through my skin. </p><p>Somehow, my mind translates it to some horrifying version of pleasure. </p><p>It didn’t matter that I made Maven beg, that I made him hurt. </p><p>It was a hollow, empty victory. </p><p>He’s already in my head, indelible as a stain. </p><p>When you’re young, you’re told to guard yourself against boys who might intend to do you harm, just as those old tales often speak of young girls being lectured not to venture out to the woods by a mother or a grandmother, those same woods where the wolf waits to cut her throat and drink her blood. </p><p>Of course, the young girls of such tales never heed that advice. They always roam the woods uselessly as the wolf stalks them, always stopping by to admire and pick flowers and explain to the disguised wolf how it can kill them the best. What knife he’ll need to skin her alive, what relative to disguise as, where he can discard her body and find his next, unsuspecting girl and grandmother to eat and spit out. </p><p>No one tells you to be guarded with princes and their soft smiles. </p><p>No one tells you that they’re the monsters that will twine themselves into your bones and claim home. That they will burrow their way into your mind and never leave. </p><p>I feel bile lodged in my throat, wanting nothing more than to scrub myself raw to clean how dirty I feel, as if it was his fingerprints that left incriminating marks on me and not my hands on him.</p><p>I want to feel the red blood rush in my face in protest against the rough treatment, feel the dirt collecting underneath my nails and the sweat beading down my brow, all the proof that I’m not some neat monster’s conquest to dine on. </p><p>I set my eyes resolutely on that grimy mirror, wipe the clouded surface of it with my calloused hands. It looks as if it’s forged from the same glass that killed me in the dream. </p><p>The mirror gleams, sharp and cold underneath my touch.</p><p>I force myself to take a good look.</p><p>I’m not remarkable looking most days. </p><p>Harsh-set brown eyes, brown hair leeched gray at the ends, brown skin. </p><p><em>I need a haircut</em>, I think, absentmindedly. </p><p>There’s no one to trim my hair and all we have is a few seasoned soldiers and children. </p><p>I try to comfort myself at the thought of Gisa doing it with her nimble fingers when we’re back from Corros, a due reward for surviving a deadly mission. </p><p>Her hands snipping away at the old strands, soothing like the hands of a Skonos healer. </p><p>The mirror confirms I’m a small and bruised thing. </p><p>The brand is not an easy sight to stomach, but I push myself through it. </p><p>I take another look, one that I assure myself will be my last one if I don’t want to be late for collecting rations.</p><p>Every day, without fail, I’m unable to discern any intimate truths rippling under the surface of my own face and skin, too used to being a doll.</p><p>Today’s different. </p><p>I recognize myself, recognize the sight of my reflection. </p><p>I feel as if the walls will enclose on me, squeeze my breath and confine me to the harrowing, wretched truth of me. </p><p>I look haggard, hungry and severe. </p><p><em>Hungry</em>.</p><p>The kind of hunger that can outmonster Maven’s. </p><p>I see. </p><p>And then I know that there will be many more nights and that the hunger will find me again. </p><p>And one of these days, I will not be able to escape from it. </p><p>Perhaps, that day, when I shatter in reality, it will be a mercy.</p><p>Only then will I be finally free from Maven and the hunger. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Closing quote:  </p><p>Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them.</p><p>― GILLIAN FLYNN, SHARP OBJECTS</p><p> <br/>Easter eggs:</p><p>*This is based one some post I saw floating around in Pinterest, where the author of the series states that Maven wears silk, black pajamas. I thought it would be a neat little detail to incorporate here. </p><p>*This is meant to be a rather dark joke, as Maven is revealed not to be capable of dreaming in King’s Cage due to his mother. Not that Mare would know this in Glass Sword. </p><p>If you found any of the included analogies or metaphors rather confusing or have any questions and burning reactions, feel free to drop a review. </p><p>Kudos are welcomed!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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